How To Improve English Pronunciation and Stop Being Afraid of Speaking With Native Accent

So, tell me about yourself. My name is Kate. I worked at  

the IT company for two years. Are you from Russia? 

Yeah, how did she know that?? Thank you for coming. Next! 

Hey guys, today we gonna talk about English pronunciation, how to improve it, how to make  

your accent better and how to stop being afraid of your native accent. If don’t' know me, I’m Kate. I  

love learning and teaching English, and here on my channel I share my experience to people who study  

English. In the first part of the video we’ll discuss a problem of having a foreign accent,  

and in the second part I will give  you some tips to solve this problem. 

One day someone told me that… I have a strong Russian accent, and that person thinks that I  

shouldn’t teach English because of having that accent. Btw, English is my second language,  

I was born and raised in Russia and I've  never lived in any English speaking country,  

even I've never been there.... and all I could do is watching videos and reading textbooks and that  

is how I learned to speak English. So what makes other person think that I should talk without my  

native accent? to talk like a native speaker? There is a widespread problem when non-native  

speakers use English - even if we know all pronunciation rules, when we start speaking  

English to someone, we are focused on what to say, what grammar tense to use and how to connect all  

the words in the sentence. And we FORGET how to pronounce the sounds right. When we speak we  

don’t have enough time to think. A lot of  students told me that it's difficult to remember  

how to pronounce English sounds, especially THOSE  sounds we don't have in our native language.  

Let me give you an example. The sound i , like in the word tips. I’ll say it for the first time in  

American accent and the second time I will say it in my native Russian accent - tips - tips.  

Do you hear the difference? Or,  another difficult thing – the sound TH.  

We don’t have the same sound in Russian. So when we speak quickly, we often pronounce  

sounds as we used to in our native language. And so people can notice your accent,  

and even they can guess what country you're from. And sometimes it might feel frustrating. 

If you've ever felt this way,  please let me know in the comments. 

But there is good news! We can change it with everyday practice. And I will give you some tips  

(NOT tips) that you can use to  improve your English pronunciation. 

Tip #1 Watch one video a day  where natives are speaking English 

Not only teachers, find VLOGS of native speakers. Watching vlogs is really good for your listening  

skills. It's easy to understand them because people’re talking about everything they show  

on the camera, and you can hear native English pronunciation. Because if you want to learn how  

to pronounce, you must learn how to listen first. So watch more videos, and if you’re short of time,  

watch just one video a day. Tip #2 Do phonetic drills Every Single Day. 

Repeat sounds, repeat words, repeat  

the whole phrases. It’s a great way  to train your vowels, your consonants  

and intonation of simple English phrases. It's a matter of practice. 

When I started doing phonetic drills, it was exhausting because all my face muscles hurt,  

but after some time I realized that I can sound much better. You can also find your favorite  

speaker and imitate his speaking style. Tip #3 Stop apologizing for your accent. 

Having an accent is not bad. Keep  that in mind and keep improving. 

I discovered an interesting thing! Sometimes people just feel comfortable || saying  

words in their native accent. When I went to the speaking clubs here, in Russia,  

I noticed that || people were smiling at me, when I was trying to speak with American accent,  

because || it might seem to them kind of unnatural. Instead of saying Twenty, I was like  

[twoni], trying to imitate American  accent, and they looked at me like this. 

That's a lovely accent you have.

I believe that it doesn't matter if you  have a foreign accent or even if you  

have a limited number of words. What really matters, is to be understood by anyone when  

you're talking. If you're able to express your thoughts and communicate to people, it's good. 

I don't tell you that we should stop working on pronunciation and stop improving, of course NOT.  

But we should NOT BE AFRAID of speaking with our native accent. It's OK.  

Everyone has an individual accent so  stop apologizing and keep improving. 

Tip #4 Read books about pronunciation I think one of the best books about pronunciation  

is English Pronunciation in Use. It's both  good for British and American pronunciation.  

I find it absolutely fascinating. You can also read a book The Lowdown:  

IMPROVE your speech It helps to you to learn  

how to use your voice and tidy up your speech. Work on Your Accent is also a useful book for  

improving your pronunciation and it helps you to reduce the influence of your native language. 

Tip #5 Use apps to check out your progress 

There’re so many of them, and you can choose whatever you like. I personally use ELSA  

Speak because this app is focused on American English, and after you pronounce some words,  

you get feedback on the right way how to move your lips and tongue |to get the sounds right. 

So these tips are extremely helpful but  you should not STRIVE to get rid of  

your native accent completely. I was a little bit frustrated when that person told me about  

my Russian accent. But I said to myself - I’m not perfect and I’m trying to speak like myself.  

I just want to connect to the world and be understood by anyone when I'm speaking English 

I make mistakes and I welcome those mistakes, and this lets me grow and improve. I don't care  

how do people see me, because it's not  about me. It's about their inner state,   

it's about their state of mind...

I mean, those offensive words about my accent. I think all accents are great, they make people  

unique and we should not be afraid of our accents.Well, I’ve told you how to make your accent better  

and gave you some tips to improve your accent. Thank you for watching this video,  

I hope you enjoyed it. Please don’t forget to give this video  

a thumbs up and subscribe to my YouTube channel! And I’ll see you in the next video. Bye bye!